What Character Was Removed from the Alphabet?

Johnson & Johnson, Barnes & Noble, Dolce & Gabbana: the ampersand today is used primarily in business names, but that small character was once the 27th part of the alphabet. Where did it come from though? The origin of its name is almost as bizarre as the name itself.

The shape of the character (&) predates the word ampersand by more than 1,500 years. In the first century, Roman scribes wrote in cursive, so when they wrote the Latin word et which means “and” they linked the e and t. Over time the combined letters came to signify the word “and” in English as well. Certain versions of the ampersand, like that in the font Caslon, clearly reveal the origin of the shape.

The word “ampersand” came many years later when “&” was actually part of the English alphabet. In the early 1800s, school children reciting their ABCs concluded the alphabet with the &. It would have been confusing to say “X, Y, Z, and.” Rather, the students said, “and per se and.” “Per se” means “by itself,” so the students were essentially saying, “X, Y, Z, and by itself and.” Over time, “and per se and” was slurred together into the word we use today: ampersand. When a word comes about from a mistaken pronunciation, it’s called a mondegreen.

(The ampersand is also used in an unusual configuration where it appears as “&c” and means etc. The ampersand does double work as the e and t.)

Don’t you think it would make you seem more than a little provincial and naive to believe that the myths you learned, which differ so obviously (at least in the details) from the myths learned by the majority of the rest of the world’s population, are in fact an accurate record of history?

I mean, does it seem reasonable that a king existed who thought he could somehow build a tower so tall that he could get into heaven, yeah. Does it seem reasonable that God thought this was in fact too mighty and caused a flood to rid the world of these massively strong and intelligent giants? No, no it does not. An excellent comparitive analysis of the mythologies (which includes today’s major religions) of the world can be found in the seminal book by Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. He discusses the role giants play in religions from Jainism (pretty much the oldest major religion still practiced) to Hinduism, to Buddhism, to those of the Abrahamic tradition. They are usually one of the hurdles the hero of the myth must overcome to return the boon to his people, or the deification of the father figure, which the hero must come to understand. A very interesting book if you like history, religion, or fairy tales (though it is pretty heavy on the pyshoanalysis).

But, come on literalists, look at the layers of a cliffside, or a fossil in a museum, or anything else older than 6000 years, and tell me that that the bible is historically accurate.

And I agree, language would have developed along with the many varied groups that were evolving the requisite brains and forming the requisite proto-cultures, in line with the other user’s comment about the native Americans.

The key word in Genesis 1:28 is ‘replenish’ the earth. The earth is certainly older than 6000 years and only God knows what was here. Some fundamentalists speculate that it was the age of the dinosaurs.

One task Adam was given was to name all the animals. That would take a while. He was not a stupid or developing creature but fully functioning in every aspect.

Flood stories are similar and contained in many cultures including tribal settings where they have not had any exposure to Western culture and its influence.

The great evidence of true Christianity is the miracle of changed lives by the power of the gospel. Paul was a persecutor of the church putting Christians to death until the day of his salvation on the road to Damascus.

While it is true that there is no recorded evidence of a flood that covered the whole earth, there is a place for the biblical account to have originated.

After the last ice age, a large ice sheet, Laurentide ice sheet, remained in northern america, which melted away. The sheet melted through it’s centre though, creating a massive fresh water lake of oceanic size. When the ice wall finally broke, seas rose and caused major flooding, especially in areas such as the black sea region, or Paltos’ “Atlantis”.

So all the evidence can be interrupted as either enough or insufficient, ultimately neither side will ever be indisputably correct, it will always be a ‘Faith vs Facts’ argument.

But there are a lot of stories from many different religions that have told about a world wide flood. The Holy Bible is the most tested book, and it has passed all three historic tests, internal, external, and bibliographical tests better than any other book so far. The dead sea scrolls provide evidence for Christianity too.

Accounts of history are discounted by people of later generations because they did not see it with their eyes or handle what fits their definition of authentication. This happened for several centuries regarding the “mythical” city of Nineveh. Many discounted that the city ever existed and used the premise to discount the accuracy of the Biblical texts. That is until in the 1840′s when archeologists going on a tip, a hunch and a local legend, dug a pit into a mound across the river from Mosel (present day Iraq). When the hole gave way to a room, it was discoved that they were in the library for the City of Nineveh, with thousands of cuneiform clay tablets. What was “legend and myth” for several centuries, became “fact” because a hole was dug into the side of a hill. So, what is your Nineveh?

Sadly, some of those artifacts have been looted because of the fighting, so will Nineveh become “myth and legend” again?

Madison Ziegler- February 28, 2015 - 4:24 am

Huh?

jack piper- March 1, 2015 - 1:13 pm

Ask any Geologist if sites around the world where the layers of the earth or areas (like the grand canyon) clearly show that there was a massive flood at a time hundreds of centuries in the past, or not. You will find, I think agreement among most well educated geologists that there was, in fact, such a flood.

Joy- March 2, 2015 - 10:41 am

There have been massive floods throughout the ages, and yes, there is an abundance of geologic evidence. But the various floods have occurred at different times. No reputable geologist would ever state that there was a time when a single flood covered the entire planet with water.
Every civilization in every part of the world has a “flood myth”, because every civilization has, at one time or another, witnessed a massive flood. But those floods did not all occur at the same time.

Louise- February 28, 2015 - 10:49 am

Is that why, some people are geniuses if they are part ‘hybrid’?. Am I part hybrid if I get angry over little things?.
One other note I learned from all these stories: Noah’s Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, Tower of Babel, etc. what God has destroyed, are they not examples of the second coming of Christ, His Son? (for all believers to ‘watch and pray, because He is coming at an hour we donot know.)

When I took comparative religion at the University of Florida, it was noted that some 270 flood accounts exist such as the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. Also Mastodons have been found in Siberia flash frozen with green vegetation in their mouths, which could be explained not by a gradual ice age which would cause them to migrate south, but by a rapid temperature change consistent with the sudden condensation of a water layer which would then fall as rain. Also numerous collections of animal carcasses have been found which do not commonly graze together. Also Darwin wrote his Origin of Species in hopes of explaining the varieties of creatures, not to refute the existence of an Intelligent Designer. In it he wrote that when the fossil record was fully examined it should reveal infinite gradations of species, but if the record revealed no life on one layer and completely formed life on the next, his theory would be false

There is an abundance of proof and evidence that the planet is WAY older than 6000 years. If you are genuinely interested, then I would encourage you to take a college-level class in geology.
I see no conflict between belief in God and science. I’ve always felt that God is the “who”, and science is the “how”. And for those who state that the Bible is the ONLY book they need, then I would invite them to use the Bible to teach them how to perform a heart transplant or how to travel to the moon.

True, the Bible cannot teach us how to do a heart transplant. However, the Bible teaches us what the Word is and how to let him into our hearts and our everyday lives. God has a plan and a will for everyone, and if that will is to become a doctor who does heart transplants, then (if you believe in God) you (anyone, not YOU in particular) will know that it is His divine intervention, however, people who do not believe in that particular Supreme Being, do not recognize it as such. Yet, we all realize at some point in our lives that we are interested in some sort of profession or as Christians say, our “calling”

i do agree when you say ” I’ve always felt that God is the “who”, and science is the “how””, but it (to me) sounds like you have a slightly biased opinion on what Christians view the Bible to be when you said “And for those who state that the Bible is the ONLY book they need, then I would invite them to use the Bible to teach them how to perform a heart transplant or how to travel to the moon”. I don’t know what sort of encounters you have had with other Christians, and they could have possibly said something to make you think that. However, being a hardcore Roman Catholic, with many even harder core Eastern Orthodox friends, and Protestant ones as well (don’t ask how we get along ( but that’s a different point altogether)) ,and a pretty justifiable world view, i feel that i can say that for the most part, Christians look to the Bible for guidance to life, the commandments, and in general, for the Truth.

So yes, you could invite Christians to look to the Bible to be able to do a heart transplant, but for the most part, they’d probably just stand there and look at you like you just sprouted Andelite eyes.
But does that make sense?

“I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.” – Philippians 4:13

Oh and by the way, dinosaur tissue was found, RECENT dinosaur tissue in a fossil. if the world was millions of years old and dinosaurs did go extinct a long time ago it would have decayed long ago as-well. Could you tell me some of that “abundant” proof you said about?

I’m one whom can say the Bible is the only book I truly need in life. I have other books, as well, but don’t need them. I won’t need to use the Bile to teach me how to “perform a heart transplant or how to travel to the moon”, for I will never do either. :~)

The Bible of course does teach how to perform a heart transplant and how to travel to the moon. Paul had a change of heart (a heart transplant) when he changed his mind about Christians, and became one himself. And Jesus’ whole purpose was to teach all of us how to do what he did: raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, heal the sick, overcome sin, disease and death and ASCEND! His ascension was his rising above the mortal sense to the spiritual sense, perhaps traveling through the universe to the moon.

lol, I was wondering the exact same thing. It’s mind boggling that so many people can so easily reject such sound evidence and turn instead to a book that was compiled by random people from antiquity who had no knowledge of the concept of natural science.

May I point out that most of us, on either side of the fence, believe ourselves to be absolutely right and everybody else is crazy. I could say that it’s mind boggling all the evidence against evolution and for creation, (and on a side note I want to know how the Big Bang is explained. Something firm nothing, really?) I will also point out that you weren’t there, you can’t say if it was randomly compiled by a bunch of ancients. I have read some on on this, and on the irreducible complexity of life, even for some of the tiniest parts. There are many systems at the molecular level in the processes of life where some of the materials produced by the process are needed for the process to work. Even amino acids, just one part of the construction of cells, have so many combinations it is highly improbable it would form the chains needed and then stick around for everything else to form. Also, a changing of kinds has never rock-solidly been shown, and there are numerous gaps in the evolutionary timeline where intermediate species are needed. You also act like you know for sure what God would do if he existed, in your mind. Who can fathom him? Who can say he didn’t put light in transit and the galaxies traveling outward( some points against creationism) Many things in the Bible we had no other source of the evidence for until they were found, for example the Hittite people and the city of Ninevah. That is irrefutable evidence. Obviously many learned people have believed, as evidenced today, so don’t act you are more intelligent than the rest become you are right. This is only broaching the surface of the subject; I advise all who read this read up on the subject. There are numerous articles for and against, and many concern facts that can be interpreted differently throug each lens. Again, most likely you will dismiss all this as the desperate ravings of a Christian nut, but I could state the same about you. The debate will continue, all believing they are either right or are unsure.

The bible is historically accurate. Geologists have said that the earth had multiple catastrophic floods and a flood covering the whole Earth is incredibly likely to have happened. The fact that the Earth is round and is suspended by nothing? Found in the bible a long time before people were even being punished for going against the church and saying it was circular. Check our JW.org and look at the publication was life created. its a brochure you may find very interesting. And its free.

Okay, two things: First, let’s not go bashing other people’s beliefs. I am an atheist, because atheism makes sense to me. Christianity makes sense to some people. Other religions, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, make sense to yet other people. Religion is about what feels right and makes sense to you. It doesn’t matter if other people disagree with you, and it doesn’t matter that you disagree with them, so let them be. Second, this is an article on the origin of the ampersand. I respect your right to express your religious beliefs, but if you want to express them on the internet, I would suggest going to someplace where religion is the intended topic of discussion, rather than in the comment section of a dictionary.com entry. It’s not the topic at hand here. To be honest, I got the sense that you were picking a fight.

I find it interesting that, with all the ampersand forms shown, the most commonly used form (or equivalent) is not even mentioned. It is the form we all use as a substitute for “and” when writing by hand. That form is created as a continuous line that begins as a down-stroke, angles up to the left, and crosses horizontally to the right. It is the form that resembles–and probably started as–a “+” (although a plus is written as two unconnected strokes). It does not seem to be directly related to “et,” yet clearly means “and” when written.

Correct, that symbol is most likely a modified ‘plus sign’ or simply ‘+’ written in cursive script where, as was stated, the intention was to write with an unbroken line. As Mallory mentioned, it is unrelated to the ampersand and is simply a scripted example of the convention that a ‘plus sign’ means ‘and’ or ‘also’.

I enjoy using it when I am emailing or texting some of my friends, (teenagers), when saying ” & I care Why??? & why would I?” because most of them have NO clue what it means.
What has society come to?
For Heaven’s Sake I Even Know What That Means.

The ampersand never should have been included in the alphabet. It is not a letter. It is a symbol fashioned out of two letters and, unlike real letters, has no phonetic use. No one spells the character “ampers&.”

The Greek alphabet had a few biliterals. And people of the day determined it belonged in the alphabet, and people of a later day decided it did not. You can decide not to include it in yours, but I wouldn’t rewrite history and say it never belonged.

So what if it was fashioned out of two letters? When “f” and “i” are next to each other in any serif font, a new symbol is created. Obviously, that can’t be shown here, but there are numerous examples of two letters combining to create a new letter or pronunciation. American English is not the end-all-be-all of lexicography or speech. In 100 years time, won’t the alphabet and language have evolved again, as is already evidenced by texting? Yes, it may be laziness, but it is also inevitable. This is fun trivia, much like the names for “…” or “?!” Besides, no one would spell it ampers&– they’d would spell it et, which is the root of the problem.

Not a letter? Oh come on, mogee! I’ll bet you were taught & is a letter when you learned your ABC’s and you just don’t remember it! Remember how the song you sang as a child ended: “W, X, Y, and, Z.” Sounds very familiar now, doesn’t it? I bet you are singing it right now. Not a letter? Your Kindergarten teacher would be in tears! SHAME ON YOU! Say you’re “Sorry”.
Also, it is “L, M, N, O, P”, not “elementoP”, say it right.

Wow & WOW even more! & that is too, 2 many &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t know about ‘zed’ becoming ‘zee’, but I do know that as far as the phonetic alphabet goes, which according to the FCC, is the only acceptable form used and is supposed to be used by all Law Enforcement, Firemen, Amateur “Ham” Radio Operators, Military & so on. Just FYI.

I believe you are correct,the phoentic alphabet was adapted in the early days of radio communications as a means of clearly picking letters out of the static, thus Zed was lot easier to deceipher from b (beta) or d Delta) E (becomes Echo) but especially from c(which became charlie) P (is PaPa ) R would be (romeo) W (would be Whiskey) so each had its own sound, again for clarity on radio transmissions. Keeping with the earlier discussion on ampersand all pronounciation marks obviously also had a sound (word) or there would be no way of transmitting or receiving something with out a sound associated with it. this all happened waaaay before Bruce Willis So there you have it,from Alpha to Zed.

The funny thing is that communications code, obviously intended to be a precise and clear way to for military or civilian emergency personnel to verbally communicate (via a radio connect) can be used as a coded way for buddies with knowledge of it to pass a message so that some third party within earshot would likely not have any idea what they are saying, i.e., by observing that someone is being a complete, “Juliet Echo Romeo Kilo.”

This is correct. Zed vs Zee is the difference between the pronunciations of the letter Z in Commonwealth English vs American English. The phonetic version of Z is Zulu. Of course, any true Englishman would say that English is certainly descriptive enough, and that American’s don’t speak it.

But the phonetic alphabet is a communications tool. I believe its roots are in the ICAO standards organization, which was adopted by the NATO alliance. Hence, it is used the same in all US Military organizations and all US Aviation organizations, including the FAA.

IIRC, as a “Doolie” at the USAF Academy, 10 seconds was the standard for successfully reciting the phonetic alphabet. However, that was about 40 years ago, so don’t quote me on that.

This has been attributed to Daniel Webster, along with the ‘zee-ing’ of the American lexicon. There are plenty of examples of words in American English where a ‘z’ has replaced what was (and is) an ‘s’ in British English. Specialise, realise, utilise.

I hate to have to admit it, but, in the case of words like “specialise”, it wasn’t Webster who changed the “s” to “z”, but the English who changed the “z” to “s” well AFTER America had been colonised (colonized?). If you look at the Oxford English Dictionary (the closest thing we have to an “official” view on correct English), you will see that they have chosen to keep the “z” and refer to the “s” form as an alternative spelling. There is an article on the web about why the OED uses the “z” form. (Google it if you are interested). So this is one place we have to admit that old Webster was “right”.

HahAaaa! I gotta’ reply2 this! Before ur 1976, in1967 I worked@ NASA MSC/JSC in the test facility as an engineer responsible4preventive maintennance&repairs of launch test equipment. The old Radiation Logic elec. Schematicsfor the decom (today’s parallel processing and serial data streaming) eqpt. When a page ran over &a ckt broke in the line dwg,it would ene w/a * &next page no.2 follow &trace the fix2 the next module in line. There was never in20years a receiving matching asterisk on the referenced page 2 allow a fix. We would always pick a different page at best logical guess and after long repetitions around the missing asterisks, we would find the fix by a process of intuition and deduction! We would always call in everbody on the shift& show &tell the prob along with the jaded * we would take turns repeating this mantra as we celebrated and called the * a Nathan Hale as follows:”I regret that I have but one asterisk to serve my country!” Had we needed that missing * on that sometimes, non-existing page,well…moonbeams would not become your eyes!

Reminds me of that other much-misrepresented character, the *, which was allegedly going to be renamed the “nathan” back in 1976, in bicentennial honour of the great American patriot, Nathan Hale, whose last words were said to have been along the lines of, “I only regret that I have but one asterisk for my country.”

It could be stated, but it wouldn’t be true. In fact it’s just the opposite. Take America for instance. When Europeans first landed, there were an estimated one million Native Americans living here, spread across a vast area of land. Their tribes usually consisted of about 100 people. Anything much higher than that, and a group would break off, and travel to another area that would have the resources they needed to survive. This is how they spread out across the country and into South America. Because there was so much distance between villages, and travel was often times slow since horses had yet to be introduced, interaction wouldn’t have been consistent. Therefore, the language of each tribe would evolve differently. Sign language was an ingenious method of communication. The meaning of a sign wouldn’t change, no matter what the spoken word was. This way people could understand each other, no matter where they were from. I’m surprised Europeans, and Asians didn’t come up with the idea too. Look at how different things are today. Unless you’ve immigrated, all Americans speak English. Not to mention those from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and of course Canada. By the by, although many English words have their roots in Latin, the structure of the language is German. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if centuries from now, assuming humans are still around, everyone will be speaking only one language, English. A language with roots in just about every language on the planet.

That might not be true either. Realistically, it seems very unlikely that the entire planet will be speaking only a variation of English at any point in the future. The number of native speakers is vastly outnumbered by the number of speakers of Mandarin, whose economic and cultural influence is thriving. We are also outnumbered by Spanish native speakers.

That’s a very good point about relative population, Guess Who. However, it seems American television and movies are popular among many countries, and somewhere well above 25% of the world’s economic activity occurs in English. I also heard that all air traffic control in the world officially uses English (but in practice mixes it up). I’m not aware of a single language dominating a higher portion of global interactions.

Given that economics drives most education programs, it seems possible that English will eventually be taught in every country and once there is a massive tipping point, no country will want to be the only one not using the language of money.

I’m told English is one of the hardest languages to learn, but one of the most efficient to use once you know it (fewer words required). I don’t know if that’s true, but my biased observation has been that when translators repeat an idea on television, they use more syllables than the English version. I realize I’m observing what I expect to see, which is not scientific proof, and I haven’t attempted to study the phenomenon.

It’s also possible our language will not dominate economic activity long enough for the world to adopt it. However, it seems likely to me that when the whole world is watching similar television shows, it will drift toward a common language. Right now, it would make sense that language would be English just because of our domination in entertainment, global trade, and travel.

I’ve heard India (a billion or so people) is not only teaching all its children English, they are trying to teach an American accent so they can dominate the phone service industry. All of this is hearsay to me, so I accept it may be incorrect.

David Lee- January 29, 2015 - 7:34 am

The most popular keyboard will dictate which language survives into the next century — not how many people speak this or that language.

Jay- February 23, 2015 - 10:20 pm

Interesting comments, Everett, but from the perspective of a native English speaker who learned Spanish at a young age and has had to translate many times, I have to disagree with English being an easier language to communicate. More efficient, maybe, but less clear. It seems to me that the Romantic languages have more precise language because they have different words to differentiate between meaning whereas in English we only use one word. Take the word hot, for example. We use it for temperature and for the spiciness of food, and while we can expand with more vocabulary, many times we have to ask for clarification from the speaker. In Spanish, “picante” refers to the spiciness and “caliente” refers to the temperature. Look at all the different uses of the word “love” also, and compare to Greek or Latin or Spanish.

As for using more words during translation, in my experience that goes both ways. Also, English uses a whole slew of idioms that are not directly translatable, so the translator ends up having to explain the “idea” of the message rather than just the actual words. Communication is more than just verbiage.

Personally, I think it would be sad to just have one world language. There are so many different ways to communicate in different languages. If you’re at a loss for words in one language, and you happen to know another language, it is so much easier to find a word that will work. Also, being multilingual has been linked to a decrease in chance for Alzheimer’s.

Old Viking- February 27, 2015 - 11:58 am

I have read that more people speak English in China than they do in the United States.

Audrey- January 13, 2015 - 1:51 pm

Sign languages (like ASL, BSL, FSL, etc.) evolve and change just as spoken languages do. They have all the characteristics and complexities of spoken languages, except the phonological elements are visual. Invented sign systems like SEE are not true languages.

I totally agree with you.
even in Spanish Household versus public usage
baby Spanish still used in adulthood
one can tell so much of one’s character with one slip
of the word during a conversation with a group of people .

Example: hey Pops ,daddy, still spoken with elder respect.
you expressed History into the present.

Actually, when English evolved, ‘German’ as we know it, and certainly Germany as we know it, did not exist.
It might be better to say that English structure is based on millennia-old Saxon, with some influences from Latin (e.g., the now extinct ‘can’t finish a sentence with a preposition according to some old English Public School Latin + English teachers’).
Of course the vocabulary arises mainly from the melding of French and Saxon following the Norman invasion in 1066 as well as some words deriving from other nearby languages, eg. the Norsemen, the Angles, the Picts the Celts. And lets not forget how much came out of Greece plus India years before that.
What a wonderful melting pot that continues to evolve as it adapts to new ideas and applications.

In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, chapter 11, verse 1(King James Bible) states: And the whole world was of one language and one speech.
During the reign of Nimrod the King of Babylon ( a descendant of Ham and of Noah (post flood), he decided to build a tower (the tower of Babylon) to Heaven and shot an arrow into the sky at God.
Background: This sounds pretty innocuous, how could a tall building, anger God? After all, eventually they would get so high up the air would be to thin to breath right? Well, Biblical scholars say it was not just a tower, after all, look at the sky scrapers we build now. Earlier in Genesis, chapter 6 verses 1-7 we are told of angels who left heaven to marry human women that they thought were beautiful. The children of these unions were giants, very tall hybrids with extra strength and intelligence. Their fathers gave them knowledge from heaven and advanced civilization far from where it should have been. God barred these fallen angels from returning to heaven, and flooded the earth to rid it of these evil hybrids that were terrorizing the weaker humans (Noah and the ark: he was a good man and perfect/ 100% human in his generations, so God saved him, his 3 sons and their wives. Ham, the middle son is thought to have had a wife with nephelim/hybrid blood because Noah cursed their son Cannan who many believe was hybrid in appearance, hence the curse. Nimrod was the son of Cush, the brother of Cannan, the grandson of Ham and great grandson of Noah. He was a hybrid, being described as a mighty hunter before the Lord. Mighty means very large in stature and strength, before the Lord means in the face of the Lord or against the Lord.
Biblical historians and scholars believe the Tower built by Nimrod was an attempt to build a portal to gain entry to heaven without the permission of God. In Genesis 11:5-6 God came down and looked at the city and the tower and said, if people can accomplish this speaking one Language, then there is nothing they can’t do. In Genesis 11:7-8 God confused their language and scattered the people. They spontaneously spoke different languages and broke off in groups that could understand each other.
*This is why to speak where someone can’t understand you is to Babel.

There is a lot of historical evidence of a single language culture, consider the pyramids found all over the world in almost every ancient country.

You are correct; that is where the word originated. But the word is rarely used correctly. The proper definition of nimrod is hunter.

In modern times the word is more often used as an insult; roughly equivalent to calling someone stupid.

Very few people know the proper definition of the word.

The British had a military aircraft designed to seek out and destroy enemy submarines; it was called the Nimrod. The name makes sense based on the traditional definition; but seems like a silly name based on the modern usage of the word.

Trochilus- February 19, 2015 - 9:15 am

Yes, but were you aware that the only full anagram (all six letters) for “nimrod” is “dormin” which is actually nimrod backwards?

“Dormin” is not really a word in the sense that we usually think of a dictionary entree. It is instead a brand name for for a sleep-aid medication, diphenhydramine.

In a recent unabridged dictionary, it also refers to an inhibitory plant hormone, Abscisic acid.

And, also from the Department of Useless Information, decades ago (’60s ??), someone manufactured an aluminum pipe lighter called a “Nimrod.”

They were cool lighters.

How “nimrod” came to mean a dolt, or stupid person, I don’t know. But it did. As I recall, it was most frequently employed by those with a decidedly aggressive public demeanor . . .”Hey, Nimrod, you want to move your car outta da way? Now?”

Your evidence of a single-language culture is that there are pyramids all over the world? Could it be that, perhaps, the pyramid shape happens to be the most efficient and stable way to stack large amounts of material?

If you’re a Bible literalist, then we all spoke the same language until the fall of the Tower of Babel. Otherwise, no. Evidence suggests that several different hominids developed spoken language independently.

Why do you think this is the least bit odd ? Throughout history, people have been discussing and debating many of the same or similar issues and problems. For instance….take the age old question, “Why is a carrot more orange than an orange ?”

Random thought here. Read again recently that no word rhymes with “orange.” Guess whoever claims that hasn’t spent much time in east Tennessee where an orange is an “arnge” and rhymes quite well with “farms” and likely other words that escape me at the moment.

It’s the 538th character. I found it by copying your character string and pasting it into a Notepad doc. Then I changed the font until the eight became apparent by its difference. The number eight shows as an em dash in a field of symbols that look like “less than” signs (<) with arrow points at the ends. What font did I use? MS Reference Specialty..What a nerd I am.

to “grok/grohk (From the novel “Stranger in a Strange Land”, by Robert A. Heinlein”),

to a definition of “glark/ meaning to figure something out from context. “The System III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context.”……
…..Interestingly, the word was originally “glork”; the context was “This gubblick contains many nonsklarkish English flutzpahs, but the overall pluggandisp can be glorked [sic] from context” (David Moser, quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in his “Metamagical Themas” column in the January 1981 “Scientific American”). It is conjectured that hackish usage mutated the verb to “glark” because glork was already an established jargon term.”,

when I came to this question:

What Character Was Removed from the Alphabet?
February 25, 2014 by: Dictionary.com blog 1,011 Comments
ampersand

& “Jesus-God put His Blood were His Mouth is” to gift us ALL something None of Us Deserve……Grace & Mercy…… everyone of us have/are/will at some point be an ass, but because of Jesus-God’s Sacrificing-Gift, (if we chose to) we now have the opportunity to be the asset JC-God sees in us…..

“you can’t step in the same river twice” – ….someday we will all have our time to die…. & face Jesus… What will you say to Him & about the Gift he gave you??? (glark…..& put yourself in His shoes)

to “grok/grohk (From the novel “Stranger in a Strange Land”, by Robert A. Heinlein”),

to a definition of “glark/ meaning to figure something out from context. “The System III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context.”……
…..Interestingly, the word was originally “glork”; the context was “This gubblick contains many nonsklarkish English flutzpahs, but the overall pluggandisp can be glorked [sic] from context” (David Moser, quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in his “Metamagical Themas” column in the January 1981 “Scientific American”). It is conjectured that hackish usage mutated the verb to “glark” because glork was already an established jargon term.”,

when I came to this question:

What Character Was Removed from the Alphabet?
February 25, 2014 by: Dictionary.com blog 1,011 Comments
ampersand

& “Jesus-God put His Blood were His Mouth is” to gift us ALL something None of Us Deserve……Grace & Mercy…… everyone of us have/are/will at some point be an ASSterisk, but because of Jesus-God’s Sacrificing-Gift, (if we chose to) we now have the opportunity to be the ASSet JC-God sees in us…..

“you can’t step in the same river twice” – ….someday we will all have our time to die…. & face Jesus… What will you say to Him & about the Gift he gave you??? (glark…..& put yourself in His shoes)

I’m not fully sure what you’re saying here.
There certainly are people (including myself) who end their “ABC” recitals by saying “W, X, Y, Z” (omitting the word “and”).
Plus, I don’t think many people would say “and zed” if “Z” were followed by another character, such as “&”. In that case, it would be “X, Y, Z, and &”, which, spoken aloud, would be “zed, and and”. If I’m understanding the article correctly, “per se” was added to split up the two spoken “ands”, making it “zed, and per se and”.

I have to disagree with you(sorry). There is a problem with what you said:
Q,q,2
they are not the same thing written differently
I know my alphabet and numbers and I am positive:
2=number
Q,q=letter (I can not argue that these are different, one is capital, one is lower case)
I am not trying to be argumentative, just trying to tell what is true.

Absolutely correct. Life, like anything else, is a product of its creator. You cannot create life, therefore it is not really your life. Ownership remains with its creator. You have, however, been charged with the responsibility of the path and the trail of 1 life. That is, where it is lead (path) and the everlasting impact it makes along the way (trail). It’s a big responsibility, so make the owner proud.

Steve, yes, life belongs to its creator. However, since I did not choose my parents, my race, my gender, my physical/mental acumen/characteristics, my country/year/era of birth, or any such similar “choices”, my creator also chose for me all I do/don’t do–according to his plan. I am His vessel and humbled by that. I don’t believe in free will. I do believe in His will.

Julia, you are wrong… we do decide everything prior to our birth. We are here for learning and lessons on our path. “He aka our Creator” is one with us. Don’t take away your connection with “Him”. After all, you are not a slave, you are in his light.

Galen- December 8, 2014 - 4:22 pm

Julia I wish I had your Faith Working on it. Until I reach my pre-chosen destination, just wish to thank you for your contribution and apparent spiritual achievement

[…] its name changed thanks to school pupils. The pupils, reciting their alphabet, ended with “XYZ and per seand“; per se means “by itself.” Just as “et” was slurred together to form the &character, […]

It’s interesting , isn’t it, that you are looking at these originally Anglo-Saxon letters on your computer screen in 2014 ? Most printers have never been able to cope with them, but any computer can . However, they did go on being used in handwritten English for some time, even after printing was in use.

Writers should pretend that that cannot hyperlink to anything. Instead of saying “find out here” when referring to a fact directly relevant to the article’s discussion, the writer should take the trouble to say, however briefly, what it is he wants the reader to find out about. That text can then include a hyperlink to a lengthier discussion. But strive for a self-contained article as opposed to requiring the reader to scurry aross the Internet to grasp what you are saying. Read a Wikipedia article on science and do the opposite of that.

Actually, mishearings is a word. It’s not a word just because your handy little spell-checker put a squiggly red line under it. It’s the present participle of mishearing.
And if you’re trying to act cool that you’ve learned that in 2nd grade, I suggest you go do your L.A homework, because your literary facts are utterly wrong.

Mishearings [ note the plural form ] is a plural noun, NOT a present participle, as are Mondegreens, mispronunciations and misinterpretations.

Please exercise more care in writing corrections and comments.

Have a productive day, everyone !

Mickinbrussels- October 22, 2014 - 1:31 am

Please do yourself a favour lad: never – ever – believe a teacher, particularly if she’s an American 2nd grade teacher pontificating about English. They’re notorious, having been known to correct everybody from Shakespeare to Mark Twain.

Exactly right. That happens all the time when listening to songs, especially if they have a loud accompaniment which tends to drown out the enunciation of the words. The term “mondegreen” came from a mishearing of the lyrics of the 17th century Scottish ballad “The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray”, which is written and sung in Scottish dialect. In part, the words are: “Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, / Oh, where hae ye been? / They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray, / And Lady Mondegreen.” Except that the actual closing words are “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray / and laid him on the green.” “Laid him on the green” was misheard as “Lady Mondegreen”.

Thank you so much for that Todd! You’re right about the prevalence of mondegreens in modern songs too – particularly for those of us who are hard of hearing.My all-time favourite was the much repeated, “Go and get stuffed! Go and get stuffed!” for the comparatively inadequate, “going gets tough, going gets tough . . .”

“comes about from” is the same as “is misheard as” to me. Isn’t hearing something mispronounced and making a determination of what was heard the same as mishearing something pronounce correctly and making a determination on what was said? If a tree falls in a forest and the only person that is present is deaf, was the sound of the tree falling heard by the deaf person? What if a blind person hears a tree fall but didn’t see it? Did it really fall? If I had typed this reply and then deleted it, did I really reply?

Worst case of apples and oranges mixing I have ever seen. Sounds are not just caused by the interacting movements of objects, they are also the very vibrations themselves. Therefore, it matters not if human or any other infinitesimal ear is there to notice, or even how minute the vibration may be, it still exists. This, regardless that the deaf person hears not and the blind person sees not. The “impact” of this truth is manifest to the deaf and the blind person alike, especially when in close enough proximity to feel the vibrations, which can take more than one form, et. wind, concussion, &c.
Besides which, the point of this altogether too frequently used argumentative fallacy is to try and state that there are no absolutes; also a fallacy. How can there be absolutely no absolutes? To wit, the argument is stated, “If a tree in the forest falls and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?” Frankly, to argue from this notion is logic fit only for the scarecrow and not worthy of an answer. Further, it goes without saying, if the tree fell, well, then the tree fell.
Ratchet, even if your response is a cogent, well thought out and logical one, if you post it in a language that no one on this planet can understand, then it is not a reply. I would even argue that it doesn’t matter who else can read it with understanding, if the bloggers of “&” didn’t, then it is still not a reply.
FYI, ask any computer HDD media expert and he, or she, will tell you that if you delete your response, it is still there on the hard drive. Alas, your tree is still making sounds even though no one is hearing them. Now, if you get yourself an overwriting program…well that’s a philosophical gnat for straining some other time.
Finally, the answer to your question, Ratchet, is “No.” Regardless of misinterpretations. The thing mispronounced is in error from the speaker, and the thing misheard is a corruption of the receiver. Students, the lesson here is: to not learn the folly of others, rather, learn from their folly and don’t repeat it. If’ns et dosna sond ye kina tha th’ reight wey, thn’ tha chances is tha it isna.

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“Over time, ‘and per se and’ was slurred together”. These changes were not the result of perennial drunkenness or laziness. They happened because of a natural language process called sandhi, which affects speech sounds at word boundaries.

Anyone who’s ever paid a real-estate tax knows that a percent sign with two 0’s in the denominator (‰) is read “per mill” and means that the number has been divided by 1,000. For example, if your property-tax rate is 48 mills, you pay 48‰ of the value of your property. (You can find the character on Character Map if you look hard enough. In Times New Roman, it’s almost at the bottom.)

He would have said, “The /three/ “bubbles” around the slash likely represent the divisor….” if he had meant that it was ‰ (which has 3 zeroes) and not % (which has 2 zeroes…which is precisely what he said).

I always thought the character of an Ampersand ‘&’ came about as a quick writing of ‘et’–the Latin for ‘and’ and that later printmakers and typographers created the ‘&’ character for printing presses and later–typewriters. >0<

The origin of the dollar sign comes from the overlaying of the letters U & S as in “United States” currency. eventually the bottom rocker was omitted leaving the dollar sign as an “S” with two vertical lines superimposed. My dollar sign Key only shows one vertical line instead of two, still suggesting the Dollar Sign.

The change in the dollar sign from two verticals to one has likely come about from all the stretching those dollars have endured over the years… and also represents the change in how “United” these states are these days: no longer united from coast to coast ["| |"] we mostly all hang together by a single thread ["|"].

It’s not unlikely that the percent symbol came from or is related to the fractional notation. x/y is a relationship between two numbers – “x is to y”. Look at the division symbol •/• (the slash is generally more horizontal to completely horizontal) and percent symbol %. The basic difference is whether the circle is empty or filled.

Perhaps the people who came up with the symbols used them to show whether or not the math is to BE done (•/•) or is ALREADY done (%). After all when you do the math on 3/5 you end up with 60%.

“And” is a word, which is why it makes perfect sense for it to evolve into one symbol. “LMNOP” isn’t a word. Why would we make a symbol for it? That’s the same as comparing the compacting of the word “dollar” (a word) into $ and “ZXRFGHM” (not a word) into a symbol… o_o

I never knew this was called an “ampersand” and I certainly never would’ve guessed that it WAS a letter in the alphabet. You guys may be wanting that letter back, but I’m gonna lay low on this one. Hmm, amazing

We still sing this in the alphabet song: “W, X, Y, _&_ Z.” I’m kind of surprised no one commented that this should NOT be a letter because it stands for a word rather than a sound. But then, judging from the fact that many of you did not know the information contained in the article, I wouldn’t expect many of you to realize that. Get a life, people!

@Evan:
“Et cetera” is Latin for “and the rest.” It’s used when you have a long list of similar things and you don’t want to list all of them: “She has every kind of novel imaginable – sci-fi, romance, adventure, etc.”

@Chika:
I agree, I just call it a squiggle. I use it after a quotation, just before the name of whoever said the quotation. In the font Footlight MT Light, this: – looks like this: ~, only tilted.

@Antinus Maximus:
No. Dictionary.com IS my Facebook.

@boobookittybang:
Wow, you’re right. I never thought of it that way before!

jamya – April 19, 2012 – 2:46 p.m.
wow i dont have a face book but this is the next best thing to it ik im a weirdo <3

To Shah Danyal who asked about the origin of “et al.” : “et” of course means and “al.” is an abbreviation of “alia”, meaning “others”. It means “and others” and is generally used only when referring to people. If only “al” is used rather than “alia”, “al” should have a period as befits an abbreviation.

Evan: “et cetera” means “and the rest”, and can be read simply as that. There is an implication though that it means a little more specifically “and the rest of such thing things” so that the things referred to but not named should be of the same nature as the ones expressed.

“et seq.” (figured I’d toss that in) is an abbreviation for the Latin “et sequentes” or “et sequentia”, meaning “and that which follows.” Itis used almost exclusively in law or academic articles.

Ethan: “W” as a vowel: most Scrabble players know, and are grateful for, the word “cwm”, which is the Welsh term for a valley or more specifically a cirque (“a steep bowl-shaped hollow occurring at the upper end of a mountain valley, especially one forming the head of a glacier or stream.” – standard definition used by many dictionaries). It is pronounced “coom”. Remember that “W” is “double u”, not “double V” notwithstanding the way it is written in print, and “double u” as a vowel pronounced “oo” makes sense.

To add, the English and American ‘w’ comes from the Middle English usage of ‘u’ instead of ‘v’, interchanging the two letters quite often for the different sounds. So back when ‘w’ entered English, which was early on, it really was a double v: “Haue an caire, deare Sir, and giue an ould Friend a crvst of breade”. But then major changes shifted us farther from our German roots and now we have W… which many people write like a double u (“ω”) anyway.
And I’m very sure cwm isn’t a valid English word, and when I’ve ever played Scrabble we were only permitted to use words in the English and American English dictionaries.

The combination of “oe” or “ae” as in foetus and Caesar are essentially diphthongs pronounced as one sound. They have been bonded, forming a ligature to produce one sound, not two. Some in English once had a dieresis (2 dots) over a vowel when two vowels came together as in the word oogonium, which I thing is a spore. In German they use an umlaut; in French it’s a dierese, and I think it’s a trema in Spanish.

(Jon, et al): Characters that are tied together (ae, oe, fi, and so forth) are called “ligatures” (meaning tied together). Many modern electronic fonts have them. Some fonts have tem in separate versions, sometimes called “extended fonts” or “expert fonts.”

Ae and oe are dipthongs, joined as one sound and so are represented as joined letters. Ligatures, such as fi, fl and ff, are joined letters that were kerned and did not set properly and would break when type was made of metal. Ok, kerns are parts of the letterforms that over hang the body of the metal type. The overhanging terminus of the “f” interferes with the the point of the “i” and so the the two pieces of type could not be well set together. Hence ligatures, which is different than dipthongs. Although a dipthongs could be seen has having the appearance of a ligature, nut not it’s purpose.
But there is an even older reason for ligatures. Following the calligraphic form of joining two or more letters together, Gutenberg’s original invention of movable type had many ligatures. This also allowed him to more easily set justified columns of type. (justified means aligned on right and left edges of the column.)
In metal each piece of type was called a sort, and unlike the ease of a keystroke there were limited quantities of these letters, these sorts. If you ran out of one and could not finish your work the frustration could be great.
You were out-of-sorts!

Since at least the 17th century ‘sorts’ has been the name of the letters used by typographers. This usage is referred to in Notes on a Century of Typography at the University Press Oxford 1693–1794 and is nicely defined in Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handy-works – Printing, 1683:

“The Letters… in every Box of the Case are… called Sorts in Printers and Founders Language; Thus a is a Sort, b is a Sort.”

For sets of type blocks to be ‘out of sorts’ would clearly be unwelcome to a typesetter. That terminology could be the source of the phrase and the notion is certainly a tempting one. We need to be cautious with that attribution however as the above citation is pre-dated by one from The proverbs, epigrams, and miscellanies of John Heywood, 1562, which makes no explicit mention of typesetting:

Fit (adj): disordered, out of sorts

That unusual definition of ‘fit’ is, oddly, almost the opposite of our current usage of the word as an adjective.

It may well turn out that pre-1562 citations that refer to typesetting will be found; after all, Gutenberg invented moveable type printing in around 1440. Until then, I’m sure that many people will opt to believe that ‘out of sorts’ derives from typesetting. All I can do is present you with the evidence as I find it and let you come to your own conclusions.

I recall, in 1949, Mrs. Omadel Reed taught us kindergarteners the alphabet adding “ampersand” at the end. It we never mentioned, however, after I commenced into grade school, consequently I was grown before I knew what the Sam Hill she was talking about.

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I think that it is dumb to have 27 letters in the alphabet. 26 is enough. It doesn’t even look like a letter, just a random symbol that someone decided should be a letter. We went from 24 letters, to 26 letters and now people are confusing us with 27 letters. Also, this is something lol my friend showed me. :8(0)!!!!! Old Grandpa!

Use an ampersand [&] as a conjunctive within clauses (where Latin uses –que) and the conjunctive ‘and’ between clauses (where Latin uses et). Never use ‘and’ within a clause.

As regards distinguishing between these levels of conjunction, English as commonly used is at present syntactically deficient & inferior. However, English is a living language and this can be rectified by awareness & discipline. The ampersand is pronounced ’n’.

Samantha Moo or whatever, I went to private school. You should really check out Bo’s page. Random facts. I am a 6th grader in public school now and happier. So if you would kindly stop making people such as my self feel inferior and unimportant, it would be a widely appreciated gesture.

Some people mentioned the ~ line. That (key) is called the tilde key. BUT that line is not the the tilde. This ` is the tilde. (Not to be confused with the apostrophe: ‘ ). I usually say it is a squiggly or wavy line. But MY question is, what are these: { } called. My math teacher called them fancy brackets, but it is clear that is not the name.

[...] “The Hot Word” article from Dictionary.com sprung a few surprises on me. First, that the ampersand was an ancient Latin creation, the cursive amalgam of e and t for “et,” the Latin word for “and.” But it wasn’t named until the 1800s. Seriously. [...]

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn’t know that! So coooool ”&” weird at the same time. I’m telling my friends ”&” family about that sooooooooooooo cooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG ( GASP ) I never knew this! This is sssssssssssssooooooooooooo cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m like totally going to send this to my friends “&” families! BTW I’m also going to tell them how cool HOTword is! Tee Hee!

I already knew that, you all are stupid if you didn’t know that. Clearly you all went to public school ,because you would have known this if you all would have gone to private school like me they teach you everything there. The only reason I am on the site because my sister did not know what she was doing,and typed in dicktionary and it brought her here. that is how she spelled it not me. Obviously I know the alphabet and how to spell.Thank you for spending time reading my post. That just goes to show that any of you have lives .Bye!

1. When, did the Romans-themselves of the 1st century write in minuscule font–? They wrote in majuscule… “ET”

2. Uncial (rounded uppercase “ƐƬ ƸƮ”) came along in the 3rd, century…

3. And none of your examples, and, none of the available fonts on a major word-processing-app, show anything nearly, like, the origin of the “&”-form (so it doesn’t show: but must be told) that it was like an uncial-E-crossed… like the way we write ‘Rx’ as R-crossed (Latin for R[eceive] or R[emedy])…

4. And, I prefer the E-vertical-slash which itself is probably based on the abbreviation for ET, E-apostrophe, (apostrophe indicates letters skipped)… like the C-slash ₵¢₡ for C[ents], and the S-slash $ for dollars (but that’s another story, probably for promoting the S[ilver-dollar])…

5. And– we finally note, that, the Wingding-& happens to be particularly popular these days (beginning Friday)  especially in gold… GO $!

I take it there are a lot of youngsters who replied to this. A 50s kid would know this unless the wool blanket of the 70s was pulled over their eyes prematurely. Schools don’t take the time to teach kids to write cursively as they did when I was a lad. Penmanship was something teachers were pretty strict about in elementary school as it was one of the tools that got you through the rest of your education. There were no computers or word processors and not every family had a typewriter lying about. Homework was handwritten no matter the subject and your grades could suffer if illegible. Multipaged essays were a true test of one’s ability to write. The ampersand was something I learned about early in life and used in my essays. Some teachers were impressed that I knew to use such.
I would like to see a random sampling of handwritten essays from students in today’s high schools/colleges.

@ unknown: emancipation is the act of freeing something or someone, emancipating them. It comes from the Latin noun emancipationem.
For example, the Emancipation Declaration signed by President Abraham Lincoln stated that the US civil war was the war to free or “emancipate” the African-American slaves.

“Very cool – thanks. I had an international technology instructor ask me once about the symbol “@”. We refer to it as the “at” symbol, but he would ask his students if they knew of another name for it. One of his northern European students referred to it as a “schnabel A”, with the “schnabel” being the word for what an elephant has on its face – its trunck. Wonder if there is another name for the “@” symbol.”

Another interesting question, would be the purpose behind symbols such as {} and [] and what makes them different from (). I am also interested in the history of | and now the letter I, but the little line which shares a key with the \.

I would like to know about the ~ sign. I use it all the time when I’m happy, but to be honest, I’m not quitre certain of its purpose. Either that, or I would like to know what ` is for, and what seperates it from its akin cousin ‘.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I NEVER KNEW THIS NICE TO KNOW NOW I CAN BRAG TO ME FRIENDS ABOUT THIS YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

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&c can stand in for etc. because etc. is short for the latin et cetera which means and others/other things. Et is just latin for and, so the ampersand can be used in its stead. It can’t replace random e-t combinations.

As an aside, I’m curious to know what would be the numerological value of &. Since it’s said to be originated from a combination of e and t, would it be appropriate to add the values of e and t. Chiero says e = 5 and t = 4, so should & = 9?

It gained popular use as graphic element during the 1920s and 30s, thanks to the signwriters of that period. It also should never be used in place of the word “and” in normal text. See: http://www.signtech-rta.com/rr/?p=15

wow that is amazing! didn’t know that! I wish that was still a part of the alphabet today that would be so COOL I wonder what were the the other ‘symbols’ of the alphabet were I reckon they would be aesome to learn about too!!